Nobody Move by Denis Johnson A Novel

From the National Book Award-winning, bestselling author of Tree of Smoke comes a provocative thriller set in the American West. Nobody Move, which first appeared in the pages of Playboy, is the story of an assortment of lowlifes in Bakersfield, California, and their cat-and-mouse game over $2.3 million. Touched by echoes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, Nobody Move is at once an homage to and a variation on literary form. It salutes one of our most enduring and popular genres--the American crime novel--but with a grisly humor and outrageousness that are Denis Johnson's own. Sexy, suspenseful, and above all entertaining, Nobody Move shows one of our greatest novelists at his versatile best.

Unrated Critic Reviews for Nobody Move

The New York Times

Like so many contemporary crime narratives (“Pulp Fiction” comes instantly to mind), Johnson’s new novel, “Nobody Move,” keeps a narrow focus, homing in on the plight of Jimmy Luntz, a barbershop chorus singer, compulsive gambler and Steve Buscemi type who owes money to a guy named Ernest Gambol,...

AV Club

Early on in the novel, Luntz tunes his car radio and settles on a Jamaican song where “somebody sang, ‘Nobody move, nobody get hurt…’” In Johnson’s novel, everyone moves, everyone gets hurt, yet no one seems to get anywhere.

The Washington Post

It may seem odd that Denis Johnson has followed up on his National Book Award-winning "Tree of Smoke," a sprawling novel about the Vietnam War, with its diametric opposite, a slim, blackly comic crime tale reminiscent of those published by Fawcett Gold Medal half a century ago.

The Telegraph

Denis Johnson won the US National Book Award in 2007 for Tree of Smoke, a massive, sprawling, in many ways wonderful if uneven novel, set during and after the Vietnam War, examining what that war did to (white, male) Americans, and to America.

The Telegraph

“So right in that shopping bag is everything you own.” “Everything I need.” Or Luntz’s dame will ask, “Do you always talk about people like they’re invisible?” and Luntz tosses back, “Usually just women.”
Luntz isn’t a very hard man (though he will learn).

About.com Bestsellers

when the story starts to boil, it's too much too late.While there's not much of a hero, Jimmy Luntz peaks some interest, but not enough.Description'Nobody Move' was released in April 2009.Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux196 PagesGuide Review - 'Nobody Move' by Denis Johnson - Book ReviewThe A...